I'd break it out into a sub (note the error check):

sub pretty_time
{
  my ($file) = @_;
  die "pretty_time: can't find $file\n"
    unless -e $file;

  my $time = (stat($file))[9];
  return scalar localtime $time;
}

...

my $pretty_file_time = &pretty_time(join('/', $dir, $file));
[download]

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F o x t r o t U n i f o r m
Found a typo in this node? /msg me
The hell with paco, vote for Erudil!